Today co-directors Cameron Bailey and Piers Handling of the Toronto International Film Festival announce the first batch of titles that are the make-up of the 36th edition. Today's the pair will read off mostly Gala screening mentions (our Blake Williams will be LIVE tweeting), which in turn give us a strong indication as to what will be shown in Venice and what Telluride, NYFF and BFI London Film Festivals might salvage/lasso as their own.
So far, about one third (35 countries to be exact) of the 96 invited to submit their entry for the Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Picture category have done so.
Thierry Fremaux, Alain Terzian, Jeanne Moreau, and filmmakers Jean-Jacques Annaud, Costa-Gavras and Regis Wargnier selected Laurent Cantet's schoolyard/classroom drama to rep La France.